Hello all,<P>From time to time, we get questions in regards to our policy about postings. A common question is: "Can I promote other dance web sites?" The answer is of course! Critical-Dance is an international dance community in support of everything related to dance, including other web sites, that is assuming they don't exceed the limits of the law and of good taste. The members here make up the rules; and our membership is made up of anyone and everyone associated with the dance community, including the fans.<P>Another question is in relation to "borrowing" newspaper links. And once again, the answer is: yes, you can copy the newspaper links we have and forward them to others or post them at other web sites. According to the three attorneys (two in the US and one in the UK) among our volunteer staff, we can't prevent it anyway, as the forum is a public domain, which brings us to our third question.<P>"Is the information in the forum copyrighted?" Well, anything that is the creation of a member is fair game in the forum. Again, because the forum is a public domain, anything in it can be copied and quoted. However, as a common courtesy, our members generally appreciate that you notify them. Most of them would be thrilled to be quoted.

Can I quote you on that Azlan?<P><BR>(JUST KIDDING!!)

Basheva, why would you want to quote me? I am a nobody.

oh your something alright....

A reminder about our policy on newspaper links - we post between 20 and 40 daily, more than any other dance website:

We should not need to state this but these links are for our readers' use and are also available to other websites, who are completely free to take them and use them to publicise dance, which I assume is the reason we are all involved in this activity.

<small>[ 19 March 2003, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

With all due respect Azlan, your statement, "...because the forum is a public domain, anything in it can be copied and quoted" isn't exactly correct. The forum may be a public domain, but most of the material published here is still copyrighted and is not itself "in the public domain." Yes, it's possible to copy anything in the forum, but it's not necessarily legal to do so. However, the U.S. copyright law has a loophole in it big enough to drive a bus load full of lawyers through it. It's known as the "fair use doctrine." It allows copying copyrighted material under some conditions for educational purposes, for reviews, etc. For example, if I published one of my photos of a dancer here, a student visiting this site could probably legally copy my photograph and use it in their term paper on ballet. But if someone else copied it and used it as wall paper on their computer screen, then they'd be violating copyright law.

According to U.S. law, courts involved in a copyright infringement cases look at the value of the work that was "stolen," what percentage was "borrowed," what economic gain the "thief" received, etc. As an example, if someone published a review of a ballet in this forum and someone else "quoted" the entire review on their own web site, a web site that generated significant advertising revenue, then a copyright infringement probably took place and severe penalties might result. But I doubt that anyone here is likely to end up in violation of the copyright law by quoting from this forum if they use reasonable judgement and good common sense. Just don't borrow any photographs since those required a lot of talent and effort on the part of the photographer to create and the courts would likely throw the book at you unless you could demonstrate that you used the work under the fair use doctrine.

Regarding links to newspapers, their URLs cannot be copyrighted, so it's OK to copy and publish them somewhere else. However, if used in a web site, the web site designer must be careful to open the link in a new page so that the content of the linked site doesn't appear to be a part of the calling site.

Roger... I think Azlan was saying that CD does not accept copyrighted posts; that if you post your own work on CD, you are putting it in the public domain. If you don't like that, you can post your work somewhere else and quote it on CD, or put a link to it on CD.

As for newspaper clippings --- that falls under the fair use doctrine because CD accepts only short quotes of copyrighted material.

Pictures are a grey area because you can link to a picture without actually copying the picture to the CD servers. When the user sees the page on CD, the user's browser fetches the pictures from its original source.

Citibob, any post here by a U.S. citizen is automatically copyrighted by that person. So, it's not a question of whether CD allows it or not. The real question is, under what circumstances can another person copy or quote that copyrighed material? There are a lot a gray areas where you really need a lawyer to determine what's allowed and what isn't (I'm not a lawyer, by the way, so I don't calim to be an expert in this area.). In most cases, I'm sure that people don't need to be too worried about quoting from the forum and can do it legally. It's only when they use large amounts of someone else's work, or they make a profit from it, or the copied work was of high value and the right to use it by another person should have been purchased. I think Azlan reached the right conclusion for most cases of copying and quoting from the forum, but I wanted to point out that it really depends on a lot of variables and things might not be clear cut. Photographs are very difficult to copy legally.

Concerning public domain, I believe there are only three ways for work to enter the public domain. One is for the author to state that he is allowing his work to enter the public domain (I believe he must do this in writing.) Another ocurrs 50 years (I believe that's the current time period) after the death of the author. And the third way is for the work to have been created by a government employee since the government has chosen to let all of its work enter the public domain. So, I don't believe anything published on CD, even when it's on their servers, is autoamatically in the public domain.

Anyway, I didn't want to start a big discussion on copyright. I just wanted to point out that, while Azlan is generally correct concerning quoting from the forum, the person doing the quoting must realize that he doesn't have a blanket right to copy anything he wants.

It's good to meet you, Citibob. I just found this site tonight and have been "reading the mail" most of the evening. I've been a fan of Pacific Northwest Ballet for 25 years and am delighed to find CD with it's reviews, comments, gossip, and information about PNB and its dancers. In spite of being a ballet fan for so many years, I feel intimidated by all of the knowledgeable people here. I've never studied ballet, so I don't feel qualified to say much about it even though I've watched a couple of hundred performances.

Thanks for the clarification, Citibob.

Also, on the photos, as far as I know any photo posted here by CD.com volunteer staff has been with permission from the dance company. In fact, we get tons of photos sent to us by companies, especially PNB and NYCB; only a small percentage gets uploaded to the site or the forum.

Thanks for the insight, Roger, and welcome. There was further language we considered adding to the original statement but most people would not have read it... So we kept it short. Part of the idea of the original statement was that we can't promise members that what they post in here won't be duplicated elsewhere and it's a compromise with members and others who have their own websites who might be tempted to quote posts from this forum. However, the forum is a public area and should be (but not exactly) governed by the same rules as a public area of speech.

BTW, as a fan of PNB, you might like this which was advertised from the PNB web site last summer:

http://www.criticaldance.com/pnb/

Roger, I hope you won't feel too intimidated to post your impressions of PNB and other companies! Some of us probably know much less than you do!

<small>[ 01 June 2003, 11:59 PM: Message edited by: Azlan ]</small>

And, oh, one more thing. Much of the policy was conceived prior to the proliferation of photos in the forum. Please feel free to write to Stuart or myself with suggested amendment to the policy in regards to photos.

Hello, Azlan. It's good to meet you. Yes, I've already read most of the information in the link you provided. I'm absolutely thrilled that I found CD. I found the link to your site from the PNB site while I was searching it for information on how to join their Reverence Society (for people who include PNB in their estate plans). Hmmm. I still need to do that.

Anyway, I do have one quick comment on PNB's The Sleeping Beauty. I saw Noelani Pantastico dance the part of Princess Aurora. She was absolutely gorgeous and danced beautifully (in my uneducated opinion). She looks like a ballerina should and has a smile that could melt granite. I asked a PNB staff member if it was likely that she would be promoted from Soloist to Principal anytime soon. He said he expected no changes for next season due to budget restraints. I guess all of the arts are having to watch their budets in the current economic climate. But, I think she's ready for a promotion, so I wasn't bashful about doing some subtle lobbying.

I'll try to send you my comments on photos. So, watch for mail from me. My aol screen name is PNBfan.

Roger... this brings up interesting issues regarding intellectual property that probably haven't yet been resolved. Most of what is written on CD is "off the cuff" conversation; the type of expression that never would have been copyrighted in the past because it was verbal and transient.

But this is a brave new digital world.

Some of what I write I believe does have merit that might warrant a copyright. I always figure if I want to copyright it, I'll re-write it --- so my working process seems to be that the first draft is public domain, but once I put significant effort into editing and evaluating ideas, it might not be. After all, the ACTUAL IDEA cannot be copyrighted, only its expression --- and in re-writing the same ideas, you create a new expression of them.

One small thing --- the limit on copyright is now 75 years after the author's death. This was a recent change in US Copyright law due to Disney's lobbying effort. They realized that the original Disney films were about to enter the public domain, yet they wished to continue profiting off of them. So they lobbied Congress.

When will this stop? Will Disney lobby Congress for a 100-year law in another 25 years? Should our society allow one group to arbitrarily profit off of the work of someone who is long dead? Yes, this issue is off-topic; but it's one I believe to be of high importance in our society today, one we need to debate more openly.

I'm not sure my picture comment was understood. There are two ways to put an image on CD. They both look the same to the user, but they could have different consequences:
1. Upload the image to CD's web server. This is clearly legal only with permission.
2. Put an IMG [brackets missing] link to a photo already available on another web server. The result is that the photo is taken out of context.

It is option (2) that I believe could have murky legality. The original image owner still retains some kind of control --- if the image on the original site is taken down, it stops working on CD as well. But still, the image has been taken and re-displayed out of context, and that could be construed as using the photo without permission.

There are technical measures one can take to prevent (2); but I suspect that very few web sites do this. Still, a web site that is concerned about other people linking to its photos should probably just take the technical measures; they're safer and cheaper than hiring lawyers to defend your copyright.

Stuart adjusted "IMG" above so that it showed up

<small>[ 02 June 2003, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Hello Roger, I copied your post to the PNB thread on "Sleeping," if you don't mind. Please continue to post there as I would like to hear more about your thoughts on the production and your experience watching the dancers grow professionally:

PNB's 'Sleeping Beauty' 2003

A question to Azlan

Dear Sir,

On August 12th 2001, you wrote:

“From time to time, we get questions in regards to our policy about postings. A common question is: "Can I promote other dance web sites?" The answer is of course! Critical-Dance is an international dance community in support of everything related to dance, including other web sites, that is assuming they don't exceed the limits of the law and of good taste. The members here make up the rules; and our membership is made up of anyone and everyone associated with the dance community, including the fans. “
“According to the three attorneys (two in the US and one in the UK) among our volunteer staff, (....) the forum is a public domain”

In late Februry 2003, I offered CriticalDance (free of charge, needless to say) an interview with the French étoile Jean Guizerix, now the head of the Ballet du Nord. Your editorial staff declined to publish, which is, of course, your right. However, to ensure that the interview be widely read, I thereupon posted a Link to the Guizerix interview on CriticalDance. The Link appeared on both the French and English sides of CriticalDance, directing readers to the Auguste Vestris Site, and, may I stress, without any comment whatsoever.

Although my behaviour in so doing strikes one as perfectly coherent with your own policy, as stated above, the aforesaid Link was torn down with a quarter of an hour without explanation.

After some insistence, on February 25th 2003 I received the following reply (translated into English here) from your moderator C. Schemm,

Stuart writes: I have removed the translation of C. Schemm's e-mail on the grounds that publishing a private e-mail without permission is a discourtesy. I believe that the sense of what follows is unchanged.

What serious intellectual grounds might C. Schemm have to censor a mere LINK to remarks uttered by a man of the stature of M. Guizerix, who was, inter alia, professor at the CNSM and “maître de ballet” to the Paris Opera Ballet ? (Incidentally, for our foreign readers, the CNSM is the equivalent of the Guildhall School, or for Americans, the Juilliard School of Music)

Azlan, whether you read the French language, I do not know, but you may be aware of the disruption caused at Paris by comments - not precisely amiable - posted by your moderator C. Schemm a few months back, concerning the appointment to the rank of étoile of Mlle. Laetitia Pujol, or, to give another example, the same moderator’s distinctly immoderate comments on a recent performance by the seventeen year-old Mlle. Matthilde Froustey. Indeed, in relation to the latter affair, a few days ago a French dancer put up a Thread entitled “Assez c’est Assez”, which means, Enough is Enough.

In the above-mentioned, censored, interview by M. Jean Guizerix, one finds, not a settling of accounts, not a venting of personal spite, but rather a thought-provoking critique of trends in the classical dance today.

To conclude, if CriticalDance be a “public forum”, as you say, one wonders whether you would care to endorse the remarks posted by your French moderators just this past weekend: they have described CriticalDance as a “private” place, rather like a party to which one is invited as a guest.

Well, Sir, if that be so, this is one party where there appear to be more bouncers at the door, than guests.

<small>[ 10 June 2003, 05:25 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>